Hardwood Veteran Looks Back On First T2Years

The hardwood lumber industry has changed a lot over the last 72 years. But one thing that hasn't is Charlie Wilson reporting to the office at 7:00 every morning.

Wilson, who recently turned 89, sells and handles all domestic hardwood purchasing for Lane Stanton Vance Lumber Co., City of Industry, Ca., reportedly the largest hardwood distributor west of the Mississippi. He joined Mox Lumber Co., Los Angeles, Ca., in 1924, right out of high school, managing a small, seven-employee retail yard. In 1928, he moved to the Los Angeles Harbor, joining L.W. Blinn Co., which had a 43-acre retaiVwholesale distribution complex on the waterfront and yards through- out Southern California. He had agreed to stay at the main yard for a year and then open a yard in Arizona, but when the Depression struck, Wilson was forced to continue inspecting lumber until 1934.

Late that year, he joined E.J. Stanton, Los Angeles, as a department manager, and three years later began selling on a commission basis. By the mid-1960s, company president RoY Stanton, Jr., sold the L.A. yard and relocated to a smaller location near the harbor in Dominguez, Ca.

Wilson managed the yard until 1970, when Stanton decided to sell the company, with the condition, for the sake of his father and grandfather, that the new owner retain the Stanton name. Stanton was merged with the Lane Lumber Co. and Vance Lumber Co., and has grown to include the mainl-ll2 acre distribution yard with complete milling facilities, nearby 3acre satellite yard, Oakland distribution yard, San Diego distribution yard and satellite yard midway between San Diego and Industry.

The main yard features a large planing mill, three surfacers, three straight-line rip saws and l1 moulders. The nearby satellite manufacturing plant does nothing but rip and surface rough lumber into S4S, instead ofthe S2S provided years ago.

"We do further processing than in those days. We sold to an awful lot of manufacturers of furniture. architectural millwork, stairways, elevators, churches," he recalls. "Nowadays, people want a finished product. You have to do things for customers now that you never dreamed of before, things they used to do for themselves."

The business isn't just evolving, it's revolving. Yards like Mox handled hardwoods, softwoods, doors, plumbing, hardware, everything the general. contractors needed. There has been a recent return to more product lines. Lane Stanton Vance has added plywood, moulding and other products and uses 25 to 30 different species.

"If you don't change with (the industry), you're left behind," he says. "Some sawmills don't want to, but the

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